May
7
This Mobile Home Don’t Feel Like Home No More
Posted by Clif Burns at 8:52 pm on May 7, 2007
Category: OFAC
Last week OFAC released it’s monthly report of civil penalties. One entry bears quoting in its entirety:
One individual has agreed to a settlement totaling $485 for allegedly engaging in transactions with an entity previously identified as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker (“SDNTâ€) violating 31 C.F.R. Part 598: OFAC alleged that from February to June 2002, the individual made payments by cash and credit card to the SDNT representing rent for space for the use of a trailer. The individual did not voluntarily disclose this matter to OFAC.
Now, perhaps there’s more here than meets the eye, but what meets the eye is a monumental waste of taxpayer resources.
Just imagine the look on the face of the trailer park tenant when he received a letter from the Department of Treasury telling him it was illegal for him to pay his rent and then imagine his phone call with OFAC.
Tenant: “An SD what?”
OFAC Agent: “An SDNT. That means Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker.”
Tenant: “Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that?”
OFAC Agent: “There’s a list of all the SDNTs. You can find it on your computer.”
Tenant: “You think if I could afford a computer I’d be living in a trailer and paying $200 per month rent?”
OFAC Agent: “If you don’t have a computer you can go to your library and look in the Federal Register. Although you’d have to look through them all.”
Tenant: “Okay, so let’s imagine I went and did that and found out that my landlord is a drug dealer in those Federal Register things. You mean I gotta stop paying him my rent? Are you nuts? These guys have guns.”
OFAC Agent: “That’s not really our problem, sir”
So what’s next? OFAC fines Miami couple $70 for paying bill in restaurant owned by SDNT? Nine-year-old fined $1.79 for buying pack of chewing gum in store owned by SDNT?
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Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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9 Comments:
:wry humor font:
Once EO 13224 went out, everyone became a junior G-man. No badge, no decoder ring. Just the responsibility. Although it can lead to silly and counter-intuitive results, you know, that ship has sailed. we were inducted into service, and we’re in it for the duration.
:end wry humor font:
More seriously, I’d love to know ‘the rest of the story’, to coin a phrase. Trailers are registered with a State DMV, they may have caught the SDNTK. The lot in the trailer park was either sold, leased or rented to the SDNTK. And so on with utilities, insurance, maintenance, taxes, etc. So, was the renter just the last guy in a bad game of musical chairs?
Actually, I think this case indicates that there might soon be a market for pocket SDN lists that you would carry around and consult every time you pulled out your wallet.
Can you imagine the hushed cell phone calls from restaurants?
“I think my waiter is on the SDN list, what do I do?”
“Sir, do not pay the waiter! Pay at the reservation desk! And this is critical, so listen up…do not leave a tip on the table. The bus boy is using an alias for an SDGT.”
Do you think they’d outsource the OFAC call center to Mumbai?
I find it strange that they are so “commando” on this one. I am all for export compliance and Treasury determined lists – but this goes too far.
Over at my blog, I detailed my latest experience with the OFAC hotline. If this poor sucker’s experience was anything like mine, mabye he TRIED to reconcile the SDN match and just gave up.
Or maybe the folks at the hotline can’t answer the phone anymore because they’ve been flooded by calls from people wondering whether they can pay their restaurant or bar tabs without being penalized by OFAC.
A possibility I had not considered…
Remember, any time a bank blocks or rejects funds transfers because of an SDN, it has to file a report to OFAC. I would imagine that many of these reports constitute ready-made penalty cases. Just add water….
But seriously, I have to agree…in the grand scheme, cases like this make OFAC look ridiculous.
Someone should tell them them that having a master in political science from a DC diploma mill does not make one a master of the universe.
